Overview

Melee It On Me is a podcast series and community platform that discusses news and headlines within the Super Smash Bros. Melee community. The podcast was originally created by Scar in November 2012 in the aftermath of Revival of Melee 5, where controversial events sparked a debate that resulted in the inception of a national Melee Facebook group. Along with Scar himself, the podcast currently features a panel of notable players and TOs such as Prog, Juggleguy, and Hyuga, who talk about a variety of topics around the Melee world including recaps of recent tournaments, discussion on the latest community headlines, and previews of upcoming tournaments. MIOM expanded in 2013 with the additions of Toph, Tafokints, SFAT, and PewPewU to the team, as well as the launching of an official website, Twitter, and YouTube channel. The Melee It On Me title is a play on the phrase “lay it on me” and has continued at a biweekly pace in 2014.

Background

Despite having been “revived” and continuing to grow in large numbers, the Melee community still lacked a significant social media presence and organization for several years in the post-Brawl era. That changed in November 2012, when Scar created a Facebook group entitled Melee It On Me in an effort to complement the Skype meeting broadcast that had been called for in the aftermath of Revival of Melee 5. The Skype meeting panelists, Scar, Prog, Hyuga, and Cactuar, used the broadcast to discuss what went wrong at ROM 5 and inform the community how things could improve moving forward. Thanks to the help of VGBootCamp’s outreach and the quickly-growing Facebook group, the broadcast was considered a success in both viewership and influence, and Scar decided to make Melee It On Me a regular podcast that could be assembled at any moment of need for the betterment of the Melee community.

EVO 2013 Donation Drive

On January 8th, 2013, the Evolution Championship Series announced its lineup of games for EVO 2013 in the upcoming summer season. Although the lineup did not include Melee as Smashers had hoped for in the aftermath of a dominating Facebook straw poll, the EVO staff announced an 8th game donation drive for breast cancer research, wherein the community that donated the most money to charity would earn their game an official spot at EVO 2013. Facing stiff competition from the Skullgirls community, a massive push from Scar and Prog (popularly dubbed the “Spirit Bomb” donation drive) resulted in the Smash community raising over $94,000 and winning Melee the final spot at EVO 2013. The campaign and its results effectively immortalized the Melee It On Me podcast as a highly influential community platform and provided incredible momentum for the Smash community going into the rest of 2013.

Nintendo Stream Crisis

On July 9th, 2013, the directors of EVO 2013 announced that they had received a cease-and-desist letter from Nintendo of America prohibiting EVO 2013 from streaming Melee on its worldwide broadcast, putting the Melee community into adversity again. Prog led the charge for a decision reversal with a well-organized social media campaign, whose rallying point centered around the MIOM Facebook group. With the aid of frontpage Reddit exposure, vilifying coverage by more than 30 gaming-related news outlets, and a legion of Twitter voices, Nintendo shockingly reversed its decision just hours after the initial announcement, prompting a renewed celebration by the Melee community about its spot at EVO 2013 and a huge sigh of relief for all Smashers following the news.

E3 Smash 4 Invitational

On June 10th, 2014, Nintendo hosted an invitational tournament during E3 2014 in Los Angeles, California, to commemorate the upcoming release of Super Smash Bros. 4. The host of the event was Geoff Keighley, while Reggie Fils-Aime also made an appearance to present the winner’s trophy. Although most were skeptical of Nintendo’s ability to select 16 worthy invitees to the event when it was first announced in early May, the eventual roster mostly consisted of prominent community figures, including several members of the Melee It On Me team. Prog and Scar manned the commentary along with D1, announcing live to the packed NOKIA Theatre as well as to a record-breaking livestream audience on the Nintendo Twitch channel. Toph and PewPewU were also selected as participants in the event. Although many disliked the Smash 4 gameplay, the event was well-received for its exhibition quality and increasing diplomacy between Nintendo and the competitive Smash community.

EVO 2014

Melee It On Me continued to produce a great presence during the summer of Smash in 2014. After being invited by Tony Cannon, the team did a panel on Day 2 of EVO 2014, speaking about The Platinum Age of Melee: “Super Smash Bros. Melee is one of the oldest and most celebrated Nintendo titles still played by fighting game players across the world. The Melee It On Me team provides a retrospective on the meteoric comeback of the Melee community over the past year; from the game’s return at EVO 2013 to the highly-acclaimed Smash Brothers documentary, from Nintendo’s historic recognition of the scene to the newfound teams and sponsors of today.” Video footage of the panel was recorded by Arturo Sanchez, but it is undetermined if the panel will be uploaded.

San Diego Comic-Con 2014

On July 25th, 2014, Nintendo hosted another Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament in its pre-release phase, this time opening sign-ups to the general public at San Diego Comic-Con 2014. Scar and Toph were chosen as the commentators for the special event alongside Nintendo reps Bill Trenen and JC Rodrigo. Team members such as Tafokints also competed in the tournament, which was eventually won by SoCal Smasher DEHF.

Moving Forward

Melee It On Me has taken huge strides in both outreach and production value. An official website, Twitter, and YouTube channel were launched in June 2013 thanks in large part to the efforts of Juggleguy. The podcast gained a new producer, CosmoNaught, in August 2013 to improve podcast production quality and ease Scar’s workload. Toph and Tafokints joined the team in November 2013 to promote the team’s outreach in commentary and content creation, respectively. The “SSBMRank” Top 100 gained significant influence within the Melee community thanks to Tafokints in December 2013. SFAT and PewPewU joined the team in January 2014 as sponsored players and a world-class Melee team. Furthermore, Scar and Toph have recently launched a spin-off podcast (“The Scar and Toph Show”) on Monday evenings to complement the Thursday podcasts, which remain a biweekly endeavor in 2014. Tafokints has also been instrumental in launching MIOM 2.0, the new team website that centers around blog content and character guides.